January 25, 2025

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN….

Life update/big changes on the horizon…

Some of you may have heard that I have taken a personal leave from my position at Gustavus this semester. Yesterday morning, I announced my resignation, effective at the end of this school year.

The road not taken, indeed….!

I follow rules. I need security. My idea of taking risks is going on roller coasters and standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon - not leaving the solid ground of having an institution to sign under my name, a place to call “home base” even as I work to widen my circle in the music community.

However, this was a necessary step for me. The promise of security in academia (read: tenure) has never been one within my reach because of choices I have made (namely, marrying another conductor and - gasp - wanting to live together and with our family) - and academia as a whole promises less and less security as time goes on.

There were so many things about my job that I loved. I loved the fact that I got to make music almost daily with other people, and could count on performances and plan ahead and dream up programs in advance. I loved going on tour; I toured through Sweden and Norway, and Spain and France, and was looking forward to visiting one of the places in Denmark where I know some of my ancestors came from. I loved seeing our students come in as very young first years, get excited about music - and teaching it! - and helping guide them through their years here, and seeing our music ed majors blossom into some of our state’s finest new (and now veteran) teachers. It was such an honor to be a part of their lives here; band, and music education, at Gustavus was really like a family, and leaving a family is HARD - but sometimes life throws us curve balls. I have to believe, though, that God knows what He is doing, and that there is a reason I have been led to shift my “base of operations” at this time.

Music has been my life for my ENTIRE life. Yes, there were times when it was not EVERYTHING - like when I was in high school and wanted to go into science - but it was still such a big part of my life that I had to finally decide to be a music major, because I couldn’t fathom a situation where I couldn’t make music every day. Probably NOT the best reason to decide to major in music (don’t take notes, folks!) - but my reason. It is my lifeblood - I can’t be away from it.

I started as a Suzuki piano kid when I was just four; I begged my non-musician parents (who I 100% credit with my love for music, since they sang to me every night when I was little) to teach me, and they knew they needed to find a teacher ASAP and we were fortunate enough to live near Stevens Point, WI (a big Suzuki method hub - early childhood music “talent education”, if you are not familiar). So - I started life on a solo instrument. I joined band late - second semester of sixth grade I convinced my parents to let me join band, and played percussion (only bass drum and suspended cymbal!) that year, only picking up trumpet (what I really wanted to play) in seventh grade. That was when I began my lifelong love affair with ensemble music - when I realized the immensity of the power of creating music with a large group of people. If you haven’t ever done this, it is not something that can be described unless you experience it yourself. Chamber music/rock bands/smaller groups are really great - but I am talking a big band/orchestra/choir that has the power of a good roomful of humans, all working together to create something so much bigger than the sum of their parts - there is no magic in the world that compares to that experience!

I have dedicated my life to this art form. The road, however, has not been an easy one. I don’t mean to imply that anyone’s road has been easy - but I feel like everything I have has been fought for and I have constantly feared its loss. The trumpet and I had a tenuous relationship, at best, and my undergraduate days were fraught with depression and downright despair as I tried to figure out how to find a vehicle for the music in me to express itself. It wasn’t until my band director (God bless Craig Kirchhoff) saw something in me and nudged me onto the path of conducting that I found my way.

I followed the exact path I was supposed to - I taught high school for three years and then went on to graduate school for conducting - but then made the non-traditional decision to marry another conductor. How could I ever call that a mistake - to have married my best friend? But that decision created a fork in my path that has caused both of our lives to become much more complicated than they otherwise would have been; applying for the same jobs! Trying to not take work home (yeah right)! Having two beautiful daughters and trying to balance work and family and trying not to be competitive with each other (um, how?)! Super fun, and not stressful at all…. Through it all, I have never had “the job” even though I certainly have the qualifications and training to do so, because how do you have two people live together and share a family but hold two top conducting positions and have any sort of life except in magic land? We certainly were not able to find that anywhere, although we found a semblance of a compromise here teaching together at Gustavus.

Through all of this, however, I have *never* had job security. I have never had the luxury of being able to count on “next year,” of feeling like I was secure in life - I have always feared for my future, always wondered when the concert I am conducting on or performing in will turn out to be my last. Perhaps in a way this makes me a better musician, because I never take anything for granted - ? But it is a very difficult way to live life, too. It has been very hard on me to watch all of my peers/grad school colleagues/friends on the same path find success and security (at least from what I see on the surface) and feel like I am always hanging by a thread. On darker days, it is hard not to feel like a downright failure.

Over the past year and a half, I have actually had some of the best professional experiences of my career. In the fall of 2023 I traveled to Bangkok, Thailand to work with the Bangkok International Band Festival. In January and February of 2024 I conducted a series of high school honor bands in Minnesota that brought me in contact with hundreds of high school students, and in February I was invited to conduct the 2024-2025 Minnesota All State Concert Band. Working with the All State band this summer was a highlight of my career; those students reignited my faith in myself that I had been losing, and I will forever be grateful to them - and cannot wait to share our music again at MMEA in February!

I have also been having the best time working with the Minnesota Symphonic Winds this past month, and can’t wait for our concert coming up on February 22. It has been a very fulfilling couple of years professionally, but again, that fear lingers, because now that I have left my position, the security of having a home base is gone. I have never been “home baseless” for lack of a better term - and I feel untethered, and like the fear I experienced my whole life is rushing towards me - that final concert, the last time I will make music with people - and I sincerely hope that is not the case.

Please know that I am still out here. I want to make music with you! Please have me to your schools; please ask me to work with your festivals and honor bands; I am not going anywhere right now, and I am more invested than ever in the arts - if there was ever a time that the arts were important it is certainly NOW! I am reachable via any of the means below - please reach out, because I would love to connect and for many of you it has been way, way too long since we have talked! (And the fault is often mine - I am an introvert and a busy parent on top of everything else….)

And the key here is - I can’t do it WITHOUT you. That is what is so scary.

The Robert Frost poem I took my title from is one of the first poems I ever fell in love with - and right now, it feels like I am on the “road less traveled” with the direction my life has gone. I am working to be optimistic and open to possibility! That is something very difficult for me, as I am learning more about myself and how my brain works and how change really throws me for a loop. I have been discovering how important TRUE friendship is, though, and how in a crisis you find out who those people are, and who they aren’t. Thank you to those of you who have been here for me, and to those of you who will - you are amazing humans, and I love you all. I look forward to rekindling friendships that I have not been good about maintaining, and hopefully making new ones as this new chapter in my life - perhaps new book altogether? - begins.

Keep music close -

With much love,

Heidi